


A Whole New World

by TheArchitectProject



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Infedelity, M/M, Multi, Reincarnation, Second Chances, Trans Aaron Burr, Unhappy marriage, Why don't you learn from your mistakes, alexander Hamilton is a dick, its not in the story but I feel strongly about it and it's canon in this universe, moral questions on reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 01:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6932332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArchitectProject/pseuds/TheArchitectProject
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1804, Alexander Hamilton is shot and killed in a duel with Aaron Burr. </p>
<p>In 2016, Alexander Hamilton wakes up in the hospital after being shot between his ribs, and he remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Whole New World

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in an hour at four in the morning because it wouldn't leave me alone. 
> 
> Thanks to ConsultingTimelordWizard, who beta read for me and who is overall just a really lovely person.

****

It started with a foggy morning, and a gunshot.

Coincidentally, that was how it had ended too. Alexander remembered all at once. He remembered Burr, his first friend, his enemy. He remembered the pain of a bullet entering his chest just between his ribs and he remembered the shout torn from the man who had shot him. The man who had spent all his life waiting, who had finally acted and had regretted it immediately. Alexander remembered Burr, he remembered the smooth young man who had bought him a drink so, so many years ago and had told him to smile more. He remembered a flushed face at his wedding, a partner in study and law and friendship, a man who he had destroyed with his last act.

Alexander remembered everything else, too. He remembered Laurens’ sweet face, and his many sketches of turtles, and how dependent they had been on one another until Laurens had left and Alexander had thrown himself into anger and hatred for everyone but his dear Laurens. He remembered the letter he received informing him of Laurens’ death, and the grief that had consumed him so much so that he could not even lift his quill.

He remembered Eliza, with her soft voice and endless compassion. How she had shone so bright, had taken control of her story and made herself the hero. How she had played piano with their children - _Phillip_ \- and how she had wished so desperately for just a few more hours together. How he had never granted them to her, and now never would.

Lafayette. Mulligan. Angelica. Washington. So many names, faces, stories, and memories. An entire lifetime of them crashing down upon him. Alexander wasn't sure if it was the memories or the gunshot that knocked him to the ground.

* * *

 

The man known as Alex Faucette woke up in the hospital three days later. He didn't remember the accident, there was too much else taking up space in his mind. Alex had long thought his mind too crowded, in this life and in the previous one, but it had never been this bad. Probably a mugging gone wrong, the doctors told him. He was lucky someone had found him, and kept him from bleeding out on the streets.

A bullet right between the ribs. If it weren't for the wonders of modern medicine, he wouldn't have survived. The irony of it would kill him. The same shot had taken away everything from him before, and now it was returned through the same tragedy.

It took a few disoriented days for him to get his memories back in order. Thinking back to his childhood was strange. Alex could remember a happy childhood with his parents and siblings in a small house in New York. He could remember playing with the other kids on the block, and achieving top grades in his school. He could remember his parents being so proud of him, loving him so fiercely it hurt. He could remember going away to college, and how he still kept in contact with them, visited them.

But those memories seemed pale and stolen in contrast with the others. The ones of blood in the streets and killing men for his country. The memories where he had been in his mother's weak arms and watching as she took her last breath, where he was too weak and delirious to go find help until he was almost dead himself. His cousin's suicide, and the hurricane that destroyed everything that he had built for himself. Memories of holding his dying son, of dying himself.

When he was finally released from the hospital, Alex Faucette felt like a stolen life. An identity that no longer fit him, and a person who he no longer was. Alex considered if this was another life he had taken prematurely, and he ransacked Faucette's - _mine, now_ \- fridge for cheap beer and spirits as soon as he returned to his apartment in an attempt to cope. It ended with him with his head in his hands on the floor, sobbing to himself over all the things lost to time and change.

Alexander felt lost, mostly. He quit his job and started anonymously publishing all the works he had failed to compose before he'd died. He grew out his hair again and tied it back with a string, trying to ignore how familiar the face in the mirror was becoming with its dark circles and taut lines. He no longer looked like a stranger to himself.

It was more luck than anything that he ended up in a bar a few months on, sitting at a table in a dark corner and frantically laying his thoughts to a word document, trying to get them out almost as soon as they formed. Typing really was a change that he didn't mind. Alex was almost too engrossed in the article to notice the figure that sat next to him, setting a glass down on the table. He did take notice of the painfully familiar voice, smooth and strong, just in his ear. "Can I buy you a drink?"

Alexander flinched away, slamming his laptop closed and staring into the eyes of his murderer. Burr seemed unaffected, raising an eyebrow at Alexander and offering a faint smirk. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

A long moment passed before Alex responded.

"I didn't expect you."

"Maybe we should try again. Aaron Burr, at your service."

"Aaron Burr, sir." The familiar words slipped out before Alexander could stop them, and he searched Burr's face for any sign of recognition. But the only response was a raised eyebrow and painfully unaware dark eyes. It almost hurt more than seeing his killer, the realization that Burr didn't remember him. Burr didn't remember, just like Alex Faucette hadn't. This was a different man altogether, with the same face and the same name and the same painful voice. "A drink. That would be nice."

Alexander went home with Burr that night, spent the night in the bed of his enemy. His friend. The last face he'd even seen, and the face that destroyed him now with its familiarity.

Alexander stayed the night, and when the sun rose he took his time to watch Burr for as long as he could, memorizing the soft features. Burr had always been handsome. Alexander never would have considered it, in his previous life. But seeing a familiar face here made him ache terribly, and he wanted nothing more than to cling to it.

Burr - Aaron makes him breakfast, and Alexander was happy to sit in the small kitchen and talk with the man he'd once known so well. Aaron was a lawyer in this time too, one who had graduated top of his class at Princeton and who had already made a name for himself as sharp and persuasive in court. Some things never changed, Alex supposed. Aaron seemed to be much the same, and it soothed something in Alexander that he hadn't realized had been shattered. Someone who could share his experience, even if it wasn't knowingly, wasn't something he was about to let go of.

So he got Aaron's number. Alexander texted him as soon as he got home, overusing emojis in his texts and asking him out for dinner later in the week. Aaron agreed, and Alex spent two days in a state of bliss. He wrote more than ever, and was offered money to publish one of his articles in a smaller local news website. His savings were starting to run low, so Alexander accepted and was immediately hit with dozens of emails requesting his writing services for a variety of projects. He accepted them all on the spot, and spent all of his free time writing and editing and actually enjoying this new life, a little.

The date goes magnificently.

Aaron Burr showed up in a gorgeous grey suit, and Alexander started to respect him as more than a ghost. This Aaron was more outgoing in this life than the last - a lesson learned in time and death, he guessed. This Aaron was happy to take charge of the conversation and draw Alexander out of the shell he had crafted around himself. By the end of it, he was just as loud and talkative and opinionated as he'd been in 1776. Aaron didn't seem to mind one bit, amused by Alexander's mouth where centuries before he'd been frustrated.

They parted with plans for another date and a soft kiss. Alexander texted him every day, and Aaron texted him back almost as often. Alexander slowly started to rebuild his life. He connected with old friends of Alex Faucette and sold his writings to anyone who would read them. He talked to the parents of the boy whose life he had stolen, assured them that he's doing just fine and that he'd met someone who made him genuinely happy.

For the first time in a long time, Alex was happy. Aaron proposed the idea of them moving in with each other several months into their relationship, and Alex had happily accepted. They found a slightly bigger place, a little closer to downtown, and spent their nights walking through the streets. They saw plays and ate at tiny restaurants, and Alexander thought that he hadn't been this happy since Eliza.

It's two years after they meet that Aaron proposes. Alex almost had a heart attack, and then babbled for almost six minutes about the financial and legal benefits of marriage for two people living together before saying yes. Aaron kissed him silly and took him home afterwards, and they don't leave the apartment for days.

It's three months after the wedding that Alexander saw Laurens, and John remembered. It's in a coffee shop, and John was just a few years younger than Alexander this time. John asked for his order, looked up, and his eyes went wide. Alexander slipped off his wedding ring and waited hours for John's shift to end, and then ended up sitting for hours more with him talking, their coffee long gone cold and concerned texts from Aaron going ignored.

Alexander goes home that night and reassures his husband, tells him that his phone had died and that everything was fine. He spends the night writing instead of sleeping by Aaron's side.

Two days later, he slipped his wedding ring into his pocket and waited for his dear Laurens again. This time he goes home with him, old memories clouding new ones, and they spent the night together. Alexander ignored his phone, and his dear Laurens made him breakfast the next morning.

Alex makes an excuse once he returns home. He'd been stranded while paying his parents a surprise visit, he tells Aaron, and his phone had died. He hadn't meant to worry him. Aaron believed him without question, didn't wonder why Alex hadn't used a different phone. Not aloud, at least.

It went on for months. Alex would claim a visit to his parents, and he would go to Laurens and lose himself in who he used to be. John was everything Aaron wasn't. He and John had been together before, for a short time. John remembered. John had never shot him. Had never been Alexander's enemy.

Aaron found out four months later. He had missed his alarm and hadn't had time to fix coffee for himself, had stopped at the coffee shop to pick up a quick cup. He'd walked in on Alexander pressing a goodbye kiss to Lauren's mouth, and had stopped short.

Usually, Aaron wasn't one to anger. He could be irritated, or annoyed, but Aaron Burr was notorious for his cool temperament. The shouting match that followed was not usual for Aaron Burr.

He had waited until they returned to the apartment, calling in sick to work. Aaron tried hard to control his temper, to be understanding. But Alex was everything to him, and he was scared and angry. He yelled, and screamed, and Alex wasn't afraid to scream back. Their fight lasted almost an hour, until -

  
_"You've never been faithful, Hamilton! I shouldn't have expected you to change now!"_

Alex stopped short at the use of his name. He hadn't heard anyone say it in almost two hundred years, especially not Aaron Burr. As far as the world was concerned, Alexander Hamilton was long dead, an obscure character of history best known for dying at the hands of a monster.

Aaron seemed to notice the pause, hesitating and realizing what he'd said as well. He didn't know where it had come from, the name and accusation had slipped out with the shadow of a memory long forgotten - a grieving young woman, a thick pamphlet that he had set aside without the intention of truly reading, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

It was gone as soon as it had appeared, and Aaron shook his head. He retreated into his bedroom and locked the door.

It wasn't their bed. Not anymore.

Months passed, and Alexander's writings finally slowed. There were few words left in him, after so many years and after a second chance.

He spent every night on the couch, watching from across the room as Aaron's life continued without his involvement. Aaron was quiet, and never spoke directly to Alex. He went to work, he came home, he had a drink, and he went to bed. He was getting dangerously thin, and Alex worried.

Aaron never removed his wedding ring.

It was a foggy morning, as with any important moment in Alexander's life, that Alex finally decided he could no longer sit by and watch. He spent days working on the letter, pouring his heart into the language. He wrote down everything, from the moment they had met in a shabby bar in Revolutionary America, to his death at the hands of Aaron and everything that came after. He spent hours agonizing over it, making it perfect, finishing it at an early hour and printing it out, leaving it on the counter in the morning and going out. He didn't want to see Aaron's face when he read it.

It started with a foggy morning, and a gunshot.

Coincidentally, that was how it had ended too.

This time, he remembered the mugging just how it was. He didn't remember his lives, this time. He remembered how the kid looked desperate. He remembered when he was that kid, fighting every day just to stay alive. Alex remembered taking a step forward, reaching out a hand - and he remembered the sudden pain between his ribs.

Alex collapsed, and this time there's no one nearby to save him. He bled to death in a dark alleyway, while Burr remained in bed back home. He bled to death with his writings complete, but his last words unspoken.

Aaron Burr was called to the hospital after they found his body. Aaron was informed of what happened, and he sobbed because he'd seen this before, this was his fault. His Alexander's only been dead for hours - but he's also been dead for two hundred years. Aaron remembered it all, and when he read the letter on the table, it's bittersweet. It's everything, and it's signed,

_Yrs forevr,  
A. Ham_

Aaron read it every day, and he remembered. There had been so many times in both of their lives where they had been antagonists, but the memories where they were friends - a night in a pub, flirting over breakfast that first morning, their wedding - those memories were so much better.

Aaron lived on, and he forgave Alexander. He wondered why it's always him that was left alone at the end, why he lived on when everyone who loved him had died. But he was willing to wait, so he spent the rest of his years traveling. He met a number of people from before - some who remember, and some who do not. The most interesting of them is Thomas Jefferson, who in a French politician with an annoying habit of vaping during meetings, and who remembered everything but didn't seem to care for it one bit.

He settled in New York again at the age of seventy-four, and walked the city streets until he was too old to do so.

Aaron lived another fifty years, and on his deathbed he prayed desperately to see Alexander again. To see Theodosia, and his daughter. His parents. Everyone who had left him behind.

And when he closed his eyes for the last time, he was met with love and forgiveness.

 

_Fin_. 


End file.
